Our Next Adventure Starts Today!

If you haven’t already heard, Mat and I bought a huge van and we’re driving it across the country – starting this morning! Right now we’re running around packing, clipping tags off our new gear and feeling nervous but excited. We’re heading to Olympia, WA to house sit for the Winter which means we’re going to be missing you all terribly, but hopefully some of you will come visit or check in with us here to see what we’re up to!

We’re starting this blog because we’ve been having so much fun traveling, creating and spending more time with family since we sold our house a couple of years ago. We get so many questions from friends and people we meet about our new “lifestyle” so we decided that we want to share what we do and how we make each adventure happen in case you want to get ideas or try something new.

Exploring Alternatives is our blog title, but it’s also exactly what we’re doing – trying new ways of living, relating to people and making decisions. We’re trying to see what happens if we follow our dreams now instead of waiting for whatever it is we used to think needed to happen first (retirement!).

I’m curious what kind of van you decided to buy and why. I am planning a similar lifestyle in a year or two, although it will be only myself. After researching various camper vans I came across so many conflicting opinions about which vans to buy for long-term traveling, and it’s very confusing. Comfort, reliability and gas-mileage are all important considerations. Any thoughts or suggestions would be great! Thanks for the inspiring posts!

Hi Suzanne – thank you for stopping by the blog! I’m happy to answer your question about how to choose a van :)

We chose a 2002 Ford E-150 cargo van because it was in good shape, it was affordable, it was stealthy, and it was ready to go (it had a bench in the back that folded into a bed). We needed something quickly and that was the best option at the time, and it has worked out really well for us so far. We’re planning to live in it for a few months this summer and for 4-5 months the summer after that. If we decide to continue having a campervan as part of our nomadic lifestyle (in addition to backpacking & house sitting) then we’d probably invest in a bigger van like a Sprinter van so that we could have an indoor kitchen and so that we could stand up in it. They’re more expensive though, and that’s why we didn’t want to invest a ton of money into our first van until we were sure we’d be using it a lot.

When we were choosing our van, we had some ideas about what was important to us, but due to the rushed timing, we were at the mercy of what was available for sale at the time. If you have the time, I think you should go see different types of vans and really listen to your instincts when you see them. Do you feel comfortable and happy and excited about them? Or do you worry about space, comfort, etc.?

Do you have any friends who own vans that you could borrow overnight or for an afternoon to drive around and maybe even try sleeping in? That might give you a better idea of which vans you like. Then you could narrow down your search even further by figuring out which of those are affordable, which model & years will still be in good shape, and which ones perform better.